


my heart knows me better than i know myself

by Muir_Wolf



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 17:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2660792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>But Nick's her best friend and her roommate and the only one she's ever counted on to have her back. He teases her about her hair and scolds her when she comes home drunk and somehow he's given her a home, even when they've moved month to month and sometimes week to week, even when the only four walls she's ever had are him, him, him.  </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	my heart knows me better than i know myself

-

Cassie is sixteen the first time she Sees it - Nick's hand tangled in her hair, their faces close and getting closer, her palms resting on the front of his shirt, pressing against his firm chest below. She blinks and she's back in the here and the now, a new awareness of her body spilling down her arms and leaving the fine hairs there standing on end. She's awkward around him for the next two weeks, catching herself looking at him when his back is turned, examining the planes of his body with new interest. 

This is Nick, comfortable Nick - Nick who's saved her life more times than she can count (and _almost_ as many times as she's saved him, if anyone's asking). This is Nick, and she is sixteen years old (and she's been told she looks seventeen), and she doesn't know why she hasn't thought of it before - he's good looking in that sort of way that makes girls trip over their words, make girls (and more than a few times boys) do the pair of them favors because Nick asks, oh so sweetly, with that _smile_. ("Your flirting's almost as good as Pushing," she'd said a few months back, and he'd given her an odd look, because there'd been a certain tone to her voice, a tone that she thinks now might have been jealousy. But that makes no sense. This is _Nick._ )

They don't kiss.

Cassie's gotten things wrong before.

She stops thinking about it, mostly, except it creeps into her mind a few times, unbidden, when she's taking a shower and trying to relax the best way she's learned how in the last year or so, and as her hand slips lower, she thinks - 

It was just a kiss. And the future isn't as certain as all that. She and Nick have proved that before.

-

She's eighteen the next time she Sees it. Oh, she's kissed two guys and one girl by then, so it's not as earth-shattering as it was two years ago, but it's still her Nick. (Her Nick, who must be regretting breaking up with Kira again, because come to think of it she doesn't think he's been with anyone himself for the last year. Which doesn't make sense, since she's always known how people react to that face of his.)

This time the wall behind him is a different color, and it's dark outside the window, instead of morning light streaming in like she'd Seen before. This time her hand is pressed against the back of his neck, pulling him down into her, and his are snug against her waist. (He's grabbed her around the waist before - lifted her up onto walls, pulled her out of the way of gunfire, steered her away from the kitchen table where she was trying to steal his sandwich, pushed her into an alley before turning back into the fray.) This time, she doesn't want it to end.

But Nick's her best friend and her roommate and the only one she's ever counted on to have her back. He teases her about her hair and scolds her when she comes home drunk and somehow he's given her a home, even when they've moved month to month and sometimes week to week, even when the only four walls she's ever had are him, him, him. Nick is hers, and she is his, and maybe when he comes out of the bathroom, his hair wet from the shower, his shirt sticking damply to his body because he never takes the time to dry off all the way, maybe she lets her eyes linger on him, just a little. Just because she can.

She's known him for five years, though. And she knows better than anyone that sometimes she gets things wrong.

-

Twenty-two years old, and when she wakes up she's not sure if that was a sex dream or something she actually Saw, but whatever the fuck it was it was the most vivid thing she's ever dealt with, so she goes out and buys a bottle of vodka and comes back home. He comes home halfway to her being blindingly drunk, and she's known him nine years so she's used to his scolds, used to his concern, used to the feel of his hands on her skin as he cups the back of her neck.

"Hey," he says, trying to wind down, trying to bite back his frustration until she's sober and ready to bear the brunt of it, "hey, what's going on with you?"

"I need to know if what I Saw was real," she says. "Is real. Is gonna be real. Gotta know for sure, Nick."

"What did you See?" he asks, that tight, controlled voice he gets when he starts mentally packing their few things, considers the places they can go right now, starts planning escape routes.

"Shhhhhh," she says, laughing a little, pretending to herself that she's not sloppy drunk because she doesn't get sloppy drunk. "Secret," she says, wide-eyed, and watches the way his eyes crinkle at the corner when he smiles, and she thinks, suddenly, that maybe it does make sense. Tries to think, but instead stumbles out over the words: "Maybe s'okay."

"Maybe what's okay?" he asks, patiently, as if he's speaking to a child. But she's not a child anymore, and it'd be nice if he remembered that.

"Maybe you know I'm old," she says. He raises his eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes. "Older. Old enough. Old enough to know what I want."

His eyebrows lower, and then lower further. "Okay," he says. "This sounds like something that should wait until you've sobered up. So drink the bottle of water I gave you, and then how about you sleep it off."

"But I need to See, Nick," she says, and even she can hear how plaintive she sounds, how troubled. He brushes the hair out of her face, impossibly gentle, and nods.

"I know," he says. "But it can wait until you can get some sleep. Unless someone is trying to kill us. Is someone trying to kill us?"

"Always," she says, waving a sweeping hand that knocks over the water bottle. He catches it before it hits the floor with a Push, and she smiles.

"So no more than usual. Then get some sleep."

-

She wakes up in the morning, cotton-mouthed, and takes a long, hot shower. She hasn't Seen anything else about it.

She doesn't for weeks.

She doesn't for longer.

-

She's twenty-three years old, and Nick is standing across from her in another shitty apartment, and she is sitting on the kitchen counter, thinking.

She is thinking: _I have known him almost half my life._

She is thinking: _The walls behind him are the same blue as the second time, but it's day out._

She is thinking: _I don't want to lose him, but this is Nick. I can't lose him. He's mine, and I'm his._

"You're mine," she says, trying it out, kicking her feet against the cabinets underneath her. Her beer is cold in her hands - the only thing that is, since they don't have A/C, and it's a middle of a heat wave.

"I know," he says, that soft smile that he only gives to her. She's noticed that: he gives those full-mouthed, heart-stopping smiles to the girls (and sometimes guys) that they need to fall in love with him just enough to help them out. It's something she's learned, too, although he's always growly after she does it, and he always looks for a different way. But this - the slight tip of his head, the soft smile, the warm, warm eyes: this is hers alone. "I know," he says again. "And you're mine, right, Cassie Holmes?"

Cassie is twenty-three years old, and she has known Nick almost half her life, and she is thinking that maybe she is tired of just Seeing the future, maybe it's time to start making it. She sets her beer down next to her, and slips off the counter. He's watching her, something uncertain in his face, something unsteady, like maybe he can feel the way the foundation beneath their feet is shifting, just a little.

She is ten feet away, and then six, and then two, and she is looking up at him, and he is looking down at her.

"Right, Cassie?" he says, his voice softer than it was before.

She reaches her hand out until her palm is pressed against his chest, his shirt soft against her skin. 

"Right," she says.

“Cassie—” he says, his hand covering hers, anchoring her in place. He has that note in his voice, that note he always gets when he wants to protect her. Part of her wants to tell him that she’s Seen it before, that it was always going to happen, but she’s not sure if she believes that. Not sure if she _wants_ to believe it.

Her eyes trace over his face – features that she knows as well as she knows her own. Better, even, since she’s spent far more time looking at him than she has in a mirror. A face she’s drawn hundreds of times in her notebooks, sketching out their future, and always trying to find a way out of it. She’s tired of trying to find escape routes, and she doesn’t want to miss this.

She takes another step closer, and he swallows. Swallows like he’s nervous, like she makes him nervous, and it’s enough to make her smile.

“I’m yours,” she says, “but that’s not why I’m going to kiss you.”

“Oh, you’re gonna kiss me, are you?” he asks, trying to bluster a bit. She takes another step closer, so that the tip of her bare foot is resting between his shoes.

“The kissing really has no bearing on the whole ‘ride-or-die companions-for-life’ thing, so don’t worry about that.”

“I’m not worried, Cassie,” he says, shifting his left foot back half an inch.

“Do you—” her smile stutters and then slips off her lips, and she takes a step back. “Sorry,” she says, “sorry, I thought—”

He groans, actually groans, and steps forward, closing the distance between them. “Don’t be sorry,” he says, “just be sure.”

She tilts her head back until she can look him clear in the eyes. “I thought you knew,” she says. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure about.”

His hands settle on her waist, unsteady, and he swallows again, although this time she doesn’t think it has anything to do with nerves.

“You know I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Spent too long keeping you safe, so even if this all ends terribly—”

“Good,” she says. “Glad we’re all clear. Now are you gonna shut up and kiss me, or?”

He smiles, he smiles _her smile_ , and then his left hand slides up to her back, pulling her in, pulling her as inexorably towards him as she’s always been pulled towards him, and she lifts her hand and cups the back of head and tugs him down to meet her halfway.

It’s everything she’s ever Seen it to be, ever imagined it to be, and so, so, so much more.

-

She is twenty-four years old, and in every future she's ever seen, he's right there beside her.

She's twenty-four years old, and when she kisses him, he's flesh and blood before her.

She likes living in the now.

-


End file.
